A Lincoln bomber at an airshow at Williamtown RAAF base. This is presumably not the same plane as the one referred to in this article.
Radioactive bomber at RAAF Williamtown
In the 1950s Britain was upset that the USA wouldn't share its atomic bomb secrets. The Brits decided to build their own bombs and they chose to test them in Australia. Nobody will ever know how much sickness and premature death of Australians in the years that followed can be attributed to exposure to radiation and to lingering fallout from the tests. Much negligence and carelessness appears to have surrounded the exercise. The story of RAAF and other aircraft deliberately flown through radioactive mushroom clouds immediately after the atomic explosions is just one example. Sometime in…